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Ba Nee
Ba Nee O'Carolan is a minor character in the Jem animated series. She is one Jerrica Benton's foster girls throughout the series and the only one who managed to be reunited with her father at the end. Biography Ba Nee was born in An Lộc sometime after her mother's village was attacked and her parents got separated. Some years later, her mother's health started to deteriorate and soon she was facing her impending death. However, she was still able to tell Ba Nee to look for her father, an American ex-soldier who fought in the Vietnam war who's main distinctive feature was that he had red hair. In the "Starbright" episodes, Ba Nee has trouble with her eyesight and Jerrica takes her to an eye doctor. He tells Jerrica that Ba Nee has a degenerative eye condition, possibly inherited by her parents, and that if she doesn't have eye surgery immediately, she'll become completely blind within a matter of months or even weeks, with the eye operation costing $250,000. Due to the success of the Jem and The Holograms' movie, Starbright, Ba Nee is able to have the surgery, regains her eyesight and she also gets to see the movie. In the "Jem Jam" episodes, Ba Nee believes one of the performers, Randy James, is her real father just because he has red hair and at some point he visited Vietnam. However, it turns out that, much to Ba Nee's dismay, Randy couldn't possibly be him as he left Vietnam years before she was born. After coping with this fact, both remained just as good friends. In Roxy Rumbles, Ba Nee gives Roxy a book to learn how to read when it is discovered that she's illiterate. In the series' finale, A Father Should Be..., it is discovered that Ba Nee's biological father is Martin O'Carolan, who was a soldier in Vietnam in 1976 and is still alive. He and Kieu Chinh got married in the middle of the war and he arranged for her to be taken to a safe place after Kieu Chinh's village was seized by Vietnamese soldiers. It was the last time they ever saw each other. Martin suffered from amnesia after taking a severe hit to the head and was brought to the Veterans Administration Hospital to recover after the war ended and he was rescued. At the end of the episode, Ba Nee leaves Starlight House to go live with Martin and is given a big farewell party where The Stingers and even The Misfits show up. Appearance Ba Nee is an 8 year old (9 at the end of the series) girl of Asian-American descent. She has pitch-black, long straight hair and can usually be seen wearing her distinctive pink dress fashioned in an Oriental-like cut with abstract-pattern decorations. She usually wears a pink bow on her hair and has a red ribbon tied around her waist as a matter of belt. The bottom of her dress ends up in a bermuda shorts-like design. Her dress is changed to a two-piece set instead for her doll and box artworks. The bow on her hair is changed from pink to blue and appears more to the front and to the left of her head. Her shoulder sleeves are longer and the patterns on her dress are of flowers this time. Instead of her red belt, she now uses a curly pink ribbon around her waist. Personality Ba Nee is a sweet-mannered girl who loves to draw and read all kinds of books. She is smart, kind and cares about the people around her. She has a positive attitude and is optimistic about finding her long-lost father someday. Ba Nee's wish is fulfilled when she and her father are reunited in the series' final episode, A Father Should Be.... Songs sung by Ba Nee *A Father Should Be Gallery Artworks Ba Nee, Ashley & Krissie - Starlight Girls - 01.png|'Ba Nee', Ashley and Krissie Animated series A Father Should Be.png Famil Is.jpg Jem - A Father Should Be... - 09.png|'Ba Nee' reunited with her father, Martin O'Carolan Ba Nee - 01.png Jem - A Father Should Be... - 11.png|'Ba Nee' breaks the fourth wall and says goodbye to the audience (A Father Should Be...) Jem - A Father Should Be... - 15.png Dolls Image.jpg|'Ba Nee' doll Trivia *Ba Nee was one of the three Starlight Girls to be adapted into a doll. *Ba Nee had a rare, degenerative and recessive eye condition that almost caused her to go blind. *Ba Nee has had two bad experiences in a zoo. First in the Jem Jam, she falls down into a bear cage while she was running away from Jerrica, Randy and the rest of the Starlight Girls in tears. The second time when Andy Martin kidnaps her and takes her to an abandoned zoo. *Ba Nee is the only character in the series to get a concluded storyline. *Ba Nee sang "A Father Should Be" twice in the series, in The Jem Jam (Part 1) and in A Father Should Be.... *Ba Nee is the most featured out of all of the Starlight Girls in the series. *Ba Nee is among the youngest out of all of the Starlight Girls, being 8 at the beginning of the series and 9 in the final episode. *Ba Nee reveals during a conversation with Randy James in the episode The Jem Jam (Part 2), that she was born in An Lộc, Vietnam. It is never explained how she made it to the United States and at a very young age. *Pop singer Ari Gold provided Ba Nee's singing voice for the song "A Father Should Be". Category:Allies Category:Characters Category:Children Category:Female characters Category:Minor characters Category:Recurring characters Category:Starlight Girls